Taylor Fritz didn’t hide his enormous disappointment after losing the US Open final as the American admitted he felt that he “let a lot of people down” because he knew his people were counting on him to finally end a 21-year-old drought of not having a male Grand Slam champion from the United States.
On Sunday, the 26-year-old made his Slam final debut in front of his home fans at Flushing Meadows. With pretty much the entire Arthur Ashe Stadium rooting for the new world No. 7, he didn’t manage to even threaten Jannik Sinner as the world No. 1 got the job done in three sets 6-3 6-4 7-5.
Had Fritz won, he would have become the first American male player since Andy Roddick in 2003 to win a Major. For many years now, there has been a lot of talk about when the United States would finally get another Slam winner as many find it shocking that a country with one of the richest tennis histories hasn’t had a champion on the biggest stage in two decades.
However, the 26-year-old was at least able to become the first American male finalist at a Slam since Roddick did it at 2009 Wimbledon.
“Not yet. There are a lot of positive things to take away and when I take some time off, I’ll be happy to have made it to the final. Right now I’m quite disappointed with how things went on the court, the way I played, how I hit certain balls. I’m not saying that would have made a difference. I would have liked to play better, give myself a better chance. I feel like the Americans have wanted a men’s champion for a long time, I’m very sad with the way I played. It’s like I let people down,” Fritz admitted.
Fritz made another confession
Truth be told, the No. 12 seed didn’t have the toughest possible path to the final since he beat Camilo Ugo Carabelli, Matteo Berrettini, Francisco Comesana, Casper Ruud, Alexander Zverev and Frances Tiafoe.
In the American’s part of the draw, there was Novak Djokovic and the defending champion was the top favorite to come out of that side and battle in the title match. But after the Serb suffered a shock third-round loss to Alexei Popyrin, the draw opened up for others to possibly make a deep run.
And reflecting on his run to the final and avoiding the record 24-time Major winner, Fritz admitted that he didn’t play his very best throughout the tournament and also underlined that in case he met the defending champion, there was no way he’d be able to scrape past that match with a solid or average performance.
“Obviously Carlos and Novak and some people lost early on in the tournament so it really opened up the draw a lot. You can only beat who’s in front of you, but I think it’s really positive for me because I don’t feel at any specific point in these two weeks, I don’t feel I was playing amazing tennis. I feel I was playing solid, nothing special. I feel I haven’t been hitting my backhand as good as I’d like to, haven’t been serving as good as I’d like to. Luckily, I could still get away with it but maybe it is a bit more open,” the 26-year-old said.
“I don’t think you have to play unbelievable to go deep in tournaments and contend. Like I said, it’s different… Novak and Carlos lost. I would have had to play a really really great match if I’d have happened to play Novak somewhere else in the draw… You can find yourself a little deeper in the draws like quarterfinals and stuff if you play solid tennis. I still think that to beat the top guys, you need to bring your best game.”
Fritz remains optimistic he will return to a Grand Slam final
Now that the eight-time ATP champion has a Slam final under his belt, he is confident that he has what it takes to again do the same in the near future and be the one who will become the first American Major winner since former world No. 1 Roddick.
“The biggest thing is that I’ve played solid. That’s extremely rewarding, to have gotten to this point playing solid. I know there’s a lot of room for improvement. I’ve always said that I feel more confident seeing that I’m capable of doing it again, whether it was my first ATP point, my first Challenger or whatever. Sometimes it’s taken me a while to achieve something, but I’ve always felt that if I do it once, I can do it again,” Fritz said.